Antelope Falls

This is the hike I have been studiously avoiding. I keep telling people I'm not in good enough shape yet. Brynn found the loophole! She asked that we go on the hike as her birthday party. So on Saturday we did it. And even having done it I can still say I'm not in good enough shape for that hike! It starts out reasonably and, thankfully, it wasn't too hot. Brynn is in the lead and all of a sudden she jumps backward with a "holy crap!!!" Of course we are all right behind her and there is a small pile up while we all try to adjust to the change in direction. Seems she almost stepped on this:

Green tree snake. It was about 5 or more feet long. Note the pretty blue tongue. It's a totally harmless snake and we were fortunate to see one. Very cool! I had heard that the trail was quite steep and at one point there would be a rope to help with the climb. So when we got to the rope I was totally thrilled! It wasn't too bad for steep and we were almost there.
Yah, right! Turns out this was just the beginning. We stopped half way up to enjoy a rest, a snack and the view.

Now, I want you to notice how far we are from the top! By now, I am drenched through with sweat and almost out of water and totally out of reserve energy. I am still, however, a Mom and this was Brynn's birthday party. So, I sucked it up and continued on. Turns out we had just finished the easy part of the hike! The rest was almost straight up with very little in the line of trail. Sometimes we were literally hanging off the side of the mountain. Then we got to the view point. WOW!! The picture doesn't do it justice. We could see the Sea and our house! Amazing!

But the hike wasn't done yet. We were now headed for the real payoff!!

A swim in the pool! Way cool! In more ways than one. There were lots of cleaner fish in the pool and they sucked on our skin looking for bits of dirt and bugs to eat. It was a bit of a shock when they started but we quickly got used to it and it was fun. Then we had to trek back down. It's way steeper going down! How does that work? I guess getting us up the mountain wasn't enough for Brynn because she decided to give us all a heart attack on the way down. She tripped. Luckily her martial arts training kicked in and she managed to roll. Unluckily she was going so fast she couldn't stop rolling and was headed off the path and really DOWN the mountain. Kori caught her just as she hit the edge of the path. I made everyone stop while I learned how to breathe again! After that the biggest thing of interest was this ant hill:

The ants are about 1 inch long. Everything grows bigger in Belize!